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It is necessary for personnel selection systems to be effective, fair, and legally appropriate. Sometimes these goals are complementary, whereas other times they conflict (leading to the so-called “validity-diversity dilemma”). In this practice forum, we trace the history and legality of proposed approaches for simultaneously maximizing job performance and diversity through personnel selection, leading to a review of a more recent method, the Pareto-optimization approach. We first describe the method at various levels of complexity and provide guidance (with examples) for implementing the technique in practice. Then, we review the potential points at which the method might be challenged legally and present defenses against those challenges. Finally, we conclude with practical tips for implementing Pareto-optimization within personnel selection.

Twenty-eight currently or recently employed adults with concealable impairments from a community in the United States completed semi-structured interviews to capture workers' perceptions of their internal and social experiences that contribute to their identity management decisions. Disability identity management strategies included effortful behaviors, such as avoiding relevant situations and using specific language to describe impairments. Participants suggested intraindividual factors (disability salience, disability strain) and environmental factors (disability stigma, ineffective social support) as primary reasons for their identity management decisions. The findings align with existing research on stigmatized identity management and consequences for well-being, together informing a proposed theoretical model. Conclusions invite policy change at national and organizational levels to account for intraindividual and environmental factors that may introduce barriers to disability disclosure and effective accommodation practices.

Job analysis forms the foundation for accurate, fair, and legally appropriate human resource systems. However, the notion that personnel practices provide fair opportunities, if they are based on systematically collected job analysis data, relies on the assumption that job analysis accurately captures the essence of jobs as they exist for all individuals. This integrative conceptual review provides a framework that integrates the diversity and job analysis literatures, finding that: (a) employees from different demographic groups can have unique yet predictable work experiences and (b) issues and biases in gathering and reporting job analysis data may cloud the documentation of diverse work experiences and perspectives. The conclusions of this review pose implications for both research and practice as we consider the extent to which job analysis may fail to capture wide and inclusive conceptualizations of successful job performance. If job analyses can be approached in a way that facilitates the collection of diverse perspectives, the inclusiveness of HR systems built-off job analyses can be improved, and job analyses can be positioned as a tool for detecting if employees from different demographic groups are assigned objectively different tasks or subjected to different expectations. Our theoretical perspective offers a promising means to understand the experience of work across various groups of employees through job analysis and mitigate (likely unintentional) discrimination that can be facilitated by one of our field's most foundational tools. It also suggests a new and important area of research.

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